Arc donned the combat armour and the prism repeater for the journey across the trenches, packing the labcoat in his saddlebag, preferring the more protective apparel for prancing around in an area that somepony had zeroed in with heavy artillery.

When they arrived at the end of the trench, Arc decided to float out an old, rusty helmet over the top of the trench, just to be sure there wasn't any trigger happy sniper waiting. As it turned out, there was none, or none that wanted to shoot at an old helmet, so Arc decided to poke his head from the cover and look at the factory.

"Alright, so we have two terminals and a shack... I'd say we make a run for the shack, just to have some cover before we go for the terminals, perhaps we find something useful there even. Agreed?" he said as he placed the repeater on the top of the trench and covered the way to the factory.

Spectrum already set to go simply followed after the others, giving a slight bow two Axel and Bit before following on the hoofs of her companions.

- - - - - - - -

Trailing behind the pegasus mare stayed alert, remaining silent and alert as she focused on listening for anything, but the trip had gone without any hitches thus far either that be a good or bad sign, but it would be foolish of her to drop her guard, slightly afraid of what would happen if she did and they were sprung upon.

Spec remained silent as Arc pulled off a trick, a faint smile lit up her face, thinking of how stupid a sniper would have felt if he took the shot and alerted them all for putting a hole in a piece of scrap metal. she held in a laugh as Arc formed out a plan, She agreed with it, They weren't fighting simple raisers or slavers whom shot at anything that moved so even though his hat trick was clever it still wasn't fool proof. "I can also look around the shack for anything that can be of use to us" after all why have a shack at all if it was just going to remain vacant, even if it was full of crud it was built for some purpose at one point in time and looking wouldn't hurt, or at least she hoped it wouldn't.

Ashen Coat crept through the trenches with the other of the group, keeping a sharp, goggle-covered eye out for anything out of the ordinary...Or anything Enclave-related for that matter.

The unicorn was silent, staring blankly as Arc did his little helmet trick. When no shots came, he continued to watch him drop the helmet again. "You do realize," Ashen began to point out, "that a sniper would be easily able to see your magic over that helmet, and that they are most likely well aware of that trick and have training to not fall for it, correct? Doing that does not prove that there are no snipers with a sight of our position."

The unicorn went back to silence as Arc suggested they use the shack as cover on the way to the factory. Assuming they were in the clear from the sniper he'd be fine with the plan, and was simply waiting for its implementation.

Arc looked at the group behind him. Then at the open space they had to cross. Then sighed, watching the water vapour form mist coming from his mouth.

"Alright... we have to cross over to the factory. I hate to do this, but... Spec, go first. You're the fastest here with your wings and you can dodge and maneuver easily back here if some shows up to shoot. We'll cover you from here, and I'll follow you next. Then, when we'll get ready to cover from there, Ashen will follow. On three."

Arc prepared the rifle and poked his head from the trench, aiming the rifle to cover 'War'.

Spec let out a giggle odd enough as it is "don't be sorry, we're playing out our strengths" She was happy to be of use in her area of 'expertise' All of the doubt from earlier washing away now as she stretched a bit waiting for the signal. She let out a deep sigh, calming her nerves as she focused on the task at hand. Making it to the shack. At the count of three her wigs brought her up and over. Maybe she wasn't as fast as some pegasi like Flash but she made due as she sped across the wasteland floor making it to the shack unscathed leaving the mare quite confused. She expected to hear at least one bullet going off even if it was silenced. " Um...Is it me or is this turning out to be way too easy?" not that there was anything wrong with it, but from experience it was always quietest before a storm.

Ashen nodded, having already holstering his rifle. Stretching his legs, he vaulted over the trench wall and galloped at full-speed towards the shack, the unicorn moving with surprising spry. In no time he was at the shack, making it unscathed unsurprisingly.

He nodded at Spectrum, before once again drawing his rifle, and scanning the area for any signs of hostiles.

Spectrum nodded at Arc, looking for anything unusual or out of place as she drew her 9mm, growing a bit disgusted with herself as she still had this old thing. It was probably crawling with germs making the mares stomach churn in horror. She instantly made it a point that the next chance she got to use all those caps for this and put it towards a nice and shiny energy weapon.

The door was rusted and took more than a little convincing to jimmy open, when it finally did give way a cloud of dust followed. The inside was abandoned save for field mice that scattered at the noise. On one side was an ancient metal desk with what must've been the oldest doughnut in existence on it. The opposite wall had a window that looked out on the factory entrance, and a blinking terminal next to it.

Arc busted to the room, landing on all four, keeping low profile posture with the repeater hovering above him. He quickly glanced around the room, the weapon tracing his vision, but all he could see was lifted dust, left behind by the ages.

"CLEAR!" yelled Arc.

He then trotted to the terminal and gave it a look, examining it. Provided he would find nothing odd about it, he would tap few buttons to see if he could draw it to life.

Stepping inside it was rather dusty, and and decrepit, in a matter of seconds the aged doughnut caught her eye making her skin crawl and her mane stand on end. The only thing she missed of the vault was how clean it was. As Arc looked over the console Spec once again focused on her talent and started to pick at every inch of the shack and in the drawers of the old desk, making sure to not touch the doughnut. Keeping an eye out the window in-case anything that Arc did on the computer affected the building, or if anyone came out of the building for that matter.

Tesla followed the rest of the group through the trenches, up to the decrepit ancient building, his laser pistol at the ready. To be completely honest, a small bubble of excitement began to build in the unicorn as he moved into the shack with Spectrum and Arc, Bit and Axel had mentioned that the systems in the Coal Factory could still be up. This made the entire thing much more dangerous than just running across some shelled trenches, but...that also meant that there could be bots around, and that ment scrap parts he could use to either build things, or even repair devices.

Sitting in the room was a small terminal that to Tesla's surprise, was still working. As Arc ran up to the terminal, Tesla krept up to the window by its side. "I got the window covered," he suggested, peering through the dusty glass panes. "Don't want anything sneaking up on us after all."

The terminal was slow to boot up, running on emergency spark batteries older than all the ponies in the shack combined. When it did come to life it seemed fairly mundane. An action to lock and unlock the factory doors, one to sound a system wide alarm, and a notification that the system wide alarm had been activated under "Contingency Zeta: Failure of City Wide Power". Clearly this factory was going to be a little more hostile than Axel and Bit had thought.

"Failed power in the whole city... you don't say... well, that probably makes the command to turn it on useless." Arc let out a tired sigh. "And the factory was on alert when they left it... so all security systems are probably still active, and after all this time on the opposite side of calibration... oh yay... this won't end well."

"Alright everypony. Opening the factory doors in three... two... one...", Arc clicked on the command to open the doors, "Should be opening now." said Arc, then looked up from the terminal to see if the motors operating the doors were still working.

Spectrum found nothing in the shack so when the door opened she was more than happy to get away from the dusty place and the germs that must be living on the food left behind for time. Standing at the entrance of the shack she looked around for a bit "I'll go first again" She simply stated, taking in a deep breath she let it out in one giant sigh before shooting forward for the entrance of the factory putting all her speed into it she shot for just beside the door, not wanting to just charge in without her team. But that doesn't mean she's impatient, while waiting for the others to make there way over she peered around the corner of the factory entrance hoping to find what there next plan of action should be.

Arc saw Spectrum fly off to the entrance, but before he could tell her to stop and at least wait for someone to cover her, she was gone. Arc facehoofed, then peeked outside, motioned to Ashen and Tesla to cover him and ran outside to join Spectrum. After few hectic seconds of running Arc's back hit the wall next to Spectrum looking inside the factory.

Looking behind her she saw Arc, smiling as she knew he was the one that protested her rash decision. But right now she was getting antsy and she just wanted to hurry up and get things done despite how that could put her and her teammates in danger. "I don't know, watch my back I'll try sneaking in for a better look" So far every doubt she and about joining the skunkwork due to her lack of anything she though as required was being thrown out the window as she was helping perfectly the complete opposite of worrying she would just be a burden on the group, Sneaking was one of her strong points as such she felt safe enough inching along the wall knowing that Arc was just outside. Now getting a better look at the building she got a better look of the innards of the factory.

The atrium was quiet and deathly still. At the far wall sat a bank of elevators, all no doubt dead from years of decay if not by the lack of main power. The reception area sat in the center of the atrium, a great circle of desks for receptionists to sit and great ponies from. Other than that there wasn't much more to see, just a few bathrooms, and oooh, a stairwell. Whelp, at least they had a way forward.

Ashen cautiously trotted into the atrium with the others, his bolt rifle out as he constantly kept a look out for any signs of movement. He scanned the room, seeing not much of interest or worth. The only pertinent area to him seemed to be the stairwell, which he indicated with a hoof.

Looking where Ashen pointed Spectrum merely nodded, sillently trotting up to the stairs, every now and then glancing back to make sure she didn't get to far ahead nor out of reasonable distance to cover her flank if need be. Only stopping other times to focus on listening as she snuck up the stairs. The mission has been too easy by far and the silence of the place was making her very un-easy. Not that she un-grateful for it just that she always expected the worse especially considering just who they were going up against. So Spectrum climbed the stairs staying low and at the ready for anything as she got the top as her ears flicked forward as she could almost listened to her heartbeat echo in her ears from all her misplace stress on the subject at hand. Waiting for the others to ascend the stairs before going any further.

Arc covered Ashen as he trotted past to take cover near the stairs. When Ashen took position, and Spectrum started to climb the stairs, he dashed from the entrance door and followed Spectrum, climbing the stairs behind her.

The stairwell was in poor repair, having collapsed on itself after only the second floor. The group was forced to step out into the offices of the accounting department and look for another way. The floor was an eerily frozen snapshot of prewar grad. Lunches still sat untouched on desks, terminals frozen in the middle of projects, and worst of all, the ashen shadows of ponies standing next to the windows when the Balefire hit. The faint wurring of a janitor bot on its patrol grew steadily louder as they approached.

"Excuse me ma'am," The janitor said in a synthetic country accent when it got in scanner range, "Ah'm 'fraid you're gunna have leave, or get a badge. Otherwise ahmma have to escort you out of this here facility."